


The Timekeeper

by theteaotter



Category: Electronic Dance Music RPF, Madeon | Hugo Leclercq/Porter Robinson - Fandom
Genre: Fantasy, M/M, fairytale AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-05
Updated: 2017-07-05
Packaged: 2018-11-28 04:37:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11410368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theteaotter/pseuds/theteaotter
Summary: "What ticks, and tocks, but isn't a clock?"





	1. Chapter 1

Porter stood in his bedroom, and tucked in the starchy, white shirt his mother gave him for his birthday.

“Your brother will be here soon,” His mother called. “Come down and help me set the dinner table.”

Porter rolled his eyes at himself in his mirror, but in the left corner of it he thought he saw something move. 

He spun around to look through his lace curtains. Something big and shadowy was lurking in the woods behind his house.

It was too big to be a deer, and moose didn’t live nearby. Something glittered around the shadow.

An overwhelming sensation to follow it before it was lost forever took hold. Porter ran from his room and down the stairs to the back door. He dashed across his twilight garden despite his mother’s voice behind him.

He caught a glimpse of the creature, bigger than he initially thought-- but it seemed like it was moving slowly, like it was waiting.

He moved deeper in the woods than he ever had been. When he looked behind him, he couldn’t see his house anymore. 

“Hello?” Porter called. He’d gotten himself lost. His mother was going to be angry if he didn’t come home soon. His brother was on his way.

He called again, but his voice died in his throat. 

In front of him is the largest deer he’d ever seen. The horns were enormous, and many, like gnarled branches of an ancient tree. Pocket watches hung like sun-catchers off of the ends and Porter thought that he might’ve been dreaming.

“What are you?” He asked. The ground cracked and opened up underneath his feet, swallowing him up. He scrambled his hands through dirt and roots until finally he hit the ground. And then it was dark.

\--

“Porter,” a voice from somewhere above him murmured. “Porter it is time to wake up.”

Porter opened his eyes and rubbed them. His head hurt, and he didn’t understand why it was dawn outside. Beads of dew had collected along the cuffs of his shirt, leaving his wrists damp. His shirt had a grass stain on the side that he was sure his mother would scold him for later. After giving himself a once over, Porter looked up to find that he was not in the woods surrounding his house anymore. They might have been, only the trees were all wrong for this time of year.

In the dawn’s weak, warm rays, the leaves seemed to shimmer and glow, whispering in some foreign language around him. Porter wandered to the closest tree, the trunk glossy white, and seemingly without bark. He brushed the back of his knuckle gently down the front to find that he was correct. It was smooth, so smooth, almost like-

“Porcelain,” the voice said again. Porter whirled around to find a boy, a man perhaps, for it was impossible to tell his age exactly. Porter squinted at the way the man seemed slightly blurry before settling into a more tangible form. His eyes, the exact kind of indescribable shade of chocolate, shone brightly, framed by thick, dark eyelashes. His hair reflected the golden light from the leaves, and swooped gently against his forehead. He wore a vest made of light blue brocade, which seemed to curl it’s patterns restlessly over his crisp, white shirt underneath.

Upon his head sat a crown of antlers, bound by chains of pocket-watches woven through them.

“The trunk is made from porcelain,” the man said. “It’s leaves are made from precious gold, and become a lovely shade of bronze during the winter months.” The man looked sadly to the ground. “Back when we had months, that is.”

Porter gazed at the man in front of him, and noticed the way the dappled shadows tended to stay away from him. They licked and pulled at the man’s shadow, but receded from the soft looking material of his dark trousers. His freckles jostled around on his cheeks and nose. He reminded Porter of a fawn.

“You’re the buck I followed from my house,” Porter said cautiously, as if he were still addressing a wild animal.

The man looked back up and smiled. Porter felt a sudden wave of weakness, which he blamed on the fall he undoubtedly had. He was standing in the middle of a gold leaf forest, speaking gently to a deer-turned-man. He was obviously having some kind of dream.

“Believing nothing will get you exactly that,” the man said. “Believing anything will get you everything, including unnecessary hardship.” His smile faded to a thin press of his lips. His posture straightened, and Porter felt suddenly very small, as mystified by the man before him as he was by the creature in the mirror.

“I am the Timekeeper, Hugo Leclercq,” he said. A steady beat, not unlike a bass drum vibrated the air around Porter. Hugo circled Porter, silently assessing him, brown eyes blazing with an otherworldly light.

“Can you hear that?” He asked.

“It is every ticking watch, every clicking clock. It is every shuddering sigh, and every joyful cry. It is the beat that your blood cells march under your skin to. It is the only thing that never changes and never stays the same. It is the sound of my heartbeat keeping time for everything in this world.”

Hugo halted, and stood toe to toe with Porter. His eyes softened as he reached slowly for Porter’s hand. Hugo gripped Porter’s fingertips and brought them to his chest, sliding in between the delicate material of his shirt, and popping the first few buttons. Porter swallowed thickly and felt a flush creep up the back of his neck, turning his ears pink. His eyebrows shot up when his fingertips brushed something fragile, smooth, and thudding against the pads. He tore his eyes away from Hugo’s and widened the crease of Hugo’s unbuttoned shirt.

Sitting in the cradle of his chest was an hourglass. Etched branches, swirling and delicate stood out against a clear glass bulb where sand trickled down from the top. The sand was silvery in appearance and could have been crushed starlight, shining as bright as diamonds. 

Thick, colored glass with solder blacked from repeated melting stacked haphazardly and formed an asymmetrical vessel where it collected at the bottom.

“When I was younger,” Hugo began, “I fell in love with a Seer. She smelled like the future, bright and hopeful--it blinded me to her true form.”

“She saw the birth of Age. She saw our world growing old and tired, and dreamed of stemming the flow. She saw the day my back would turn on her, and she grew jealous and horrifying.”

Hugo dropped his gaze down to where Porter’s fingers still touched the delicate branches adorning the top of his hourglass. “She fantasized about ending my existence, and used my devotion to gain the upper hand. During our final battle, she broke my heart open and scattered time itself to the four winds.”

Hugo pushed Porter’s fingers against the soldered filigree lacing across the sharp, rough glass of the bottom of his heart, running away from his fingers like battle scars. “I have managed to reclaim all of the pieces of myself, but four,” he said. “The last four clocks represent the chambers of her heart, locked away and unreachable to me.”

Hugo’s voice lowered, his lips close enough to Porter’s to smell cinnamon on his breath.  
“I have been waiting for you Porter,” he said. “I have been waiting for so long. You are a descendant of that woman. Though I loved her very much, and hated her even more, there is something that shines much brighter in your eyes-- something more beautiful than the past or future. Something I have longed to witness since I spun the Earth fast enough to cool the fires from within.”

“I knew your grandfather, and his father, and all of their fathers,” he whispered. “They helped me reclaim the pieces of myself, fused them for me, gave me something to look to, something to hunt for on the horizon. They told me the story of your birth before their sons were ever thought about.”

“And now,” Hugo darted his eyes down to Porter’s mouth before looking back up from under sooty eyelashes. “Here you are.”

Porter gazed into the endless dark expanse of Hugo’s eyes and saw his past. Comfortable and boring, he could feel the heartbreak of a life spent waiting. He was born to love Hugo-- grew up loving Hugo, and all along was completely unaware. His present task was telegraphed in the soft twitches of Hugo’s pupils, opening and closing with each breath.

His future was still just a whisper on Hugo’s eyelashes, praying for a chance to fall against his cheek. Porter slid his fingers up from the hourglass nestled in Hugo’s chest to grip his collar firmly. Hugo’s pulse raced against his knuckles, as steady as a pendulum, fluttering like a hummingbird.

“Tell me what I need to do,” Porter said, his breath puffing out against Hugo’s lips.

Hugo’s mouth quirked up, his eyes twinkling in mirth, obviously pleased by Porter’s reaction. “Turn around,” he said, loosening Porter’s grasp on his collar, kissing over his knuckles before letting go.

As he turned away from Hugo, now draped in the vivid colors of high noon, Porter was surprised by the sight before him. Gone were the delicate golden leaves adorning fragile ceramic trees. The path behind him was decorated with cobblestones of many different colors.

“Hugo,” Porter gasped, surprised by intense blue sky unfolding before him. Porter turned back to Hugo, only to find that the forest had completely vanished, with not a single golden leaf left behind. Only endless sky, and in the distance a tall, white building, a bulbous crown adorning a central tower.


	2. The Garden

Porter’s feet crunched down the path toward the palace, kicking up specks of sugar. He assumed the colored cobblestones were actually gumdrops, judging by the way they smelled, and the way they gave slightly beneath his shoes. Bouncy, Porter thought. 

Lime green gates surrounded the garden at the front of the palace. They stretched up, caressing the sky with sharp looking spades, as if they could tear the expanse like satin. Bronze filigree handles carved in a mandala shape, swirled hectically in kaleidoscopic patterns before clicking apart.

As he stepped gently from each gummy stone, Porter took in the sheer expanse of the garden. The sky leaked down gentle sunshine, lending a surreal glow to the scene sprawling before him. The garden seemed to be comprised almost entirely out of pinwheels. Each one was a solid color, and seemed as if they grew that way in the wild, the colors and textures twisting meaninglessly across the palace grounds.

Now that Porter was past the gates, he could see that the building which looked so small back where he had stood with Hugo, was in fact almost an exact replica of the Taj Mahal. It loomed over Porter, seeming to sway with the gentle, constant breeze. 

A ferris wheel made of ostriches twirled along the other avenue. They squawked loudly and collapsed once they noticed Porter staring at them. Separating quickly, they shoved their heads under the gumdrop stones, startling Porter into walking further down the lane leading to the front door of the Taj Mahal.

Teal and pink paisley leaves were bunched and bundled together along gnarled branches lining the avenue. As Porter walked by them, they bloomed lazily, reaching sleepily toward the sunshine. They wafted and waved in the breeze, swirling patchouli; heavy and sweet, in the air around him. 

Pulled taffy shimmered orange and satiny in a wide pool set as the centerpiece to the garden. Brooch bugs tittered and vibrated from where they were sunning themselves among candy-floss flowers. Their gems reflected prismatic lights along the delicate, ancient carvings framing the large white door looming in front of Porter. Above him, the clouds seemed to freeze in their wispy, lazy race to get nowhere fast.

Porter raised his fist and firmly knocked on the door. Only, he couldn’t rap his knuckles against this door, because it wasn’t made from a solid material. Before Porter’s eyes, the intricate carvings seemed to blur and run together. As his fist sunk further into the door, Porter recognized the consistency to be akin to a gigantic marshmallow.

In a fit of panic, Porter tried to yank his hand free with his other one, effectively getting both hands lodged in sticky warmth. Hoping to gain leverage with his foot, he pushed against the wall of white goo, only to find that most of his appendages where now encased within the rapidly declining surface of the palace. As he looked up, Porter saw the bulbous tower of the Taj Mahal melting and descending down on top of him. A wave of heavy, white suffocation crashed down on his head, pushing and pressing down on him until Porter’s vision sparked bright red, before fading to black.

When Porter came to, he was enveloped in darkness. There was solid ground beneath his body, and the crushing weight of the tower was lifted off of him, leaving Porter to drift alone with his thoughts. Briefly, he wondered if he was dead. Perhaps if he had listened to his mother’s voice instead of storming out of the house the way he did, he might have never met Hugo. He certainly wouldn’t be laying on his side in pitch darkness.

Floral scented curls reflected the halo of golden leaves falling away from the leaf trees. Dark eyes, a hue the night sky could only dream of becoming, flooded Porter’s mind. There was nothing worse than never meeting Hugo in the first place. Porter pushed himself up and onto his feet with renewed vigor. There could be nothing worse than letting Hugo down.

Distantly, something that sounded like a sitar tinkled in the darkness. Porter turned toward the thin sound, and found a small cottage sitting upon a crystal pedestal, illuminated by a single tiny lantern hanging above it. The smoke billowing cheerfully from the chimney seemed to be frozen where it wafted.

The cottage was perhaps made of gingerbread, but Porter did not reach out to touch. He wouldn’t have liked it very much of some stranger came and touched his house to make sure it was made from aluminum, after all. He used the very tip of his index finger to tap gently against the green sugar crust on the front door. The gentle sound of the sitar stopped abruptly.

“Hello?” came a small voice from somewhere inside the cottage. The sitar apparently was not far away, just very tiny.

“Hello, I’m Porter,” Porter said. “Was that you playing the sitar?”

Porter heard some rummaging from inside of the cottage before a tiny face with very fluffy hair peered out from behind sunflower petal drapes.

“I don’t know what a Porter is. Please leave.” the small face said.

Porter, lost in crushing darkness on every side of him except for this tiny cottage lit up by a single lantern, desperately tried to reason with him.

“I’m a Porter. I won’t hurt you, I promise.” Porter sunk to his knees in front of the miniature parlor window, so he maybe wouldn’t look so big to someone so small.

“I am looking for something very special.” He tilted his head to peer better into the window. “Could you maybe be my something special?”

The boy inside shifted his curtain closed before slowly opening the door. His hair flopped to and fro as he cautiously looked both ways before crawling out. His small face was attached to a green and blue caterpillar body, and he wore a bow tie that was no bigger than an eyelash.

“My name is Anton, and I have never been special to anyone in my whole life,” he said, as he fidgeted around a bit before curling his bottom half against himself, making a cushion to sit on.

“You are special to me,” Porter said. “Because I thought I was all alone before I heard your song.”

Anton flushed bright purple from the roots of his wild hair all the way down to his numerous tiny feet. 

“You heard that?” he asked.

“Yes,” Porter said. “It was beautiful, but I have to ask; Why are you alone inside of a marshmallow Taj Mahal?”

Anton turned from violet to a very sickly pale green. The shade was perhaps like that of the underbelly of a frog. “I stay inside because that’s where my clock is.”

Intrigued, Porter leaned closer in so that Anton was two inches or so from the tip of his nose.

“This clock, you see,” Anton continued, “is a clock that stops time.”

Porter scrunched up his nose a bit, and leaned back on his heels. The clock Anton described sounded an awful lot like one of the clocks Hugo sent him to retrieve. Perhaps, there was a way that Porter could somehow help both Anton and Hugo.

“There is a murder of crows outside that crave my flesh, for I am sweet and smokey from eating the paisley leaves outside,” Anton said.

“I use my clock to stop time long enough to go outside and eat before retreating back to my cottage.”

“That must be very frightening,” Porter said.

“I am a coward,” Anton said, and turned his face away in frustration.

Porter frowned and scooped Anton up from his front porch. Anton squeaked in response, and curled tightly against Porter’s thumb.

“You are not a coward,” Porter said. “You opened your door to a stranger who is a hundred times larger than your whole house.” He paused for a moment, thoughtful, as he rolled his eyes toward the small lantern hanging above them.

“I’ll tell you what,” he said. “I’ll take you outside. I won’t let the crows eat you, and I’ll place you deep inside of the tightest bundle of paisley, on the highest branch I can reach. That way, no one will see you.”

“You would do all that for me?” Anton asked, his eyes large and excited.

“Yes,” Porter said, “Because you are special to me.” He gently patted the fluffy mop of hair on top of Anton’s head.

“I have to give you something,” Anton said, quick and eager. “It’s only fair, after all. You can have anything but my sitar.” He fidgeted against Porter’s thumb. “It was a gift to me, and therefore not mine to give away.”

Porter smiled softly before asking if he could have Anton’s clock. He was a little nervous about asking, worried that Anton might be reluctant to part with it.

“Of course you may have it,” Anton said. “You will keep me safe from the crows, and I have longed to see the clouds rolling in the sky again.” Anton frowned a little and loosened his grip on Porter’s thumb. “It is too heavy for me to lift on my own anyway. If you could, just place me in the trees, and then come back to retrieve the clock.”

Porter set Anton down in front of his door, so that he could gather the few possessions belonging to him. After packing them tightly in a ripply walnut shell, and strapping his sitar to his back, Anton raised his numerous hands up to Porter, waiting to be lifted. Porter cradled Anton and his meager items with both hands, and carried them toward the darkness.

“Everything remains unknown, until it is known,” Anton said, and a large door swung open into the bright courtyard of the Taj Mahal. The light from outside flooded the space around them, revealing that the endless darkness around them was only about the size of his mother’s wardrobe back home.

Time was still frozen outside. The overwhelming scent of patchouli flooded Porter’s nose as he neared the paisley leaf trees. When the wind wafted through them, they sounded like candles flickering. The crows that Anton spoke of were stiff and still on the branches.

As he promised, Porter placed Anton on the highest branch he could reach, and tucked him into the most dense of unopened paisley.

“Thank you,” Anton’s voice drifted down--tiny, muffled, and happy.

Porter smiled and withdrew his hand. He scooped the crows from where they perched on the branches, and tucked them under his arms, like discarded stuffed animals. The door to the Taj Mahal remained solid, and swung obediently open. He let it slip close behind him, blotting the colorful light from the garden out.

Alone in the darkness again, the empty cottage sat before him, dimly lit by the rapidly fading lantern light. Porter approached the house, and pulled back the multi-colored shingles thatched to the roof. Inside, where he supposed the living room was, Porter found a grandfather clock, no bigger than a sewing needle.

Porter plucked it from the ornate room, and examined it closely. It may have been made from cedar, for the wood was warm and golden. It reminded Porter vaguely of the freckles on the bridge of Hugo’s nose. “The first clock,” Porter whispered into the darkness.

Suddenly, the clock face started ticking once more, the pendulum swinging delicately back and forth. Porter heard, before he saw, the large black crows stirring to life. Two shrill caws echoed before the flock descended on him, swirling wings snuffing out the lantern light.

In the confusion of the fray, Porter flailed his hands out and stumbled backwards, knocking over the crystal pedestal with the cottage on it. Flapping wings slapped Porter in the face, sending feathers up his nose, the cackles above him dizzying and disorienting. He lost his footing on the crushed remains of Anton’s tiny cottage.

Porter shoved his hands out to break his fall, but as he did so, the ground shattered away from him, revealing open sky. The crows followed him out, scattering on the wind around him. Tiny shards of broken crystal twinkled in the afternoon sun as Porter fell from the sky. The world below him was structured and clear, as if it were carved from ice. Rapidly approaching what looked to be a grove of trees, Porter braced himself for what would surely be a painful landing.

Right before impact, a strong wind from underneath Porter’s body, smelling like damp earth swirled up and slowed his fall. As he uncurled from the ground, he thought he saw the flash of an antler in the very corner of his eye. Porter blinked, and blinked again, until something smooth and cold nuzzled his arm. Surprised, Porter jumped up and came face to face with a glass giraffe.


	3. The Glass Menagerie

Porter scrambled backwards from the large, clear head of the creature, staring after it with awe. It’s whole body was clear and hard, but not all that cold. Not as cold as ice anyway, for Porter could not see his breath, and the day was still warm and bright.

Around him, trees, made from the same material rose high and thick into the air. The giraffe spared him one more glance before going back to where he munched happily on the lower leaves. His tongue clicked loudly against the branches.

As he chewed in big, round mouthfuls, tiny bits of square, tempered shards crumbled and fell to the forest floor. Porter’s eyes widened in realization. Everything is made of glass, he thought, and got to his feet.

On top of the hill, illuminated by the high afternoon sun, sat a glass man upon a what looked like a glass tortoise. Porter climbed, crunching tiny spikes of glass beneath his boots, and leaving a trail of fresh, vibrant grass in his wake. Shy violets and forget-me-nots held onto each other as they pushed their way through the smooth glass pane that Porter left behind.

At the summit, the man sat glimmering in the sun, making small tinkling sounds as he gently swung his feet against the sides of his tortoise. The tortoise had dark navy and violet cushions sprouting from its back like a bed of velvety flowers. Golden tassels slid against the smooth surface of the man’s legs.

The man refracted small prismatic squares onto Porter’s clothes. Amongst where his legs were nestled in his velvet cushions, Porter noticed a pair of goldfish swimming up the man’s right leg, batting a pocket watch back and forth with their tails.

The fish were shiny under the spotless glass, a kind of white-gold, with tails that resembled veils. They were made from lace and trailed delicate floral patterns around where the man’s kneecaps would be, if he were to have working knees.

Porter crouched lower to get a better view of the golden watch. It seemed to have its spindly hands moving very slowly, much too slow for a respectable watch. Porter furrowed his eyebrows and tapped against the man’s shin.

“Excuse me!” The man scowled. “It is quite rude of you to inspect a man’s legs without first introducing yourself!”

Porter, scrambled backward and skid across the smooth glass pane he left behind. Tiny, green blades of grass sprouted up and around his bottom as he sat dumbfounded under the glass man’s cold stare.

“Oh for---I’m Matan Zohar,” the man said exasperatedly. “And who are you, little boy?”

Porter, indignant, stood up on his grass spot and rubbed his palms against his thighs to get the dirt off. “I’m Porter, and I’m not little!”

“Hmph,” said Mat. “You aren’t very big either.”

The fish giggled inside of his legs and started their game of batting the pocketwatch back and forth. It tinked off the side of his calf, and he frowned down at his legs.

“I wish I could feel that,” he said. He looked back up to where Porter stood on his grass patch. “Don’t you ever wish you could be anyone else?”

The tortoise heaved a heavy sigh from under Mat’s velvet pillows.

“Shut up tortoise, you always wanted to be a daffodil, I don’t want to hear it.”

Porter cautiously stepped closer to where Mat sat, mindful of the slippery slope his boots created.

“Of course,” he said, and meant it. He thought about all the times he asked the exact same thing countless times in the mirror.

“Finally!” Mat said, tapping his legs against the tortoise and disrupting the fish. “Someone agrees with me around here!”

“I’ve always wanted to be a bird, or a star in the night sky; A wish, a crayon, a snail in the rain. I’ve dreamt about being the flower pulled apart by an anxious lover, I’ve dreamt about being a grain of sand.”

“I’ve always wanted to be born! What a great adventure having elastic skin would be! Having a beating heart, salty tears, red blood, and my head stuffed full of grey matter! I can only imagine a seventh birthday where I finally understand what mortality is.”

The tortoise sighed again.

“Just because I can’t feel anything doesn’t mean I don’t have feelings tortoise,” Mat said dejectedly.

“I can not make sense because I have no senses to make,” he said to Porter. “The goldfish spin the hands nice and slow so that I’ll have enough time to fulfill my wish. Perhaps I can find a way to change fate.”

Porter touched one of the velvet pillows resting against Mat’s legs.

“You were born though,” he said. “As a glass man.”

“I was never born,” Mat said. “I just was. I was made to sit on this blasted tortoise and carry these annoying lacefish in my legs, and watch how warped time ticks away inside my own body.”

“Didn’t you ask Hu---” Porter hesitated, “The Timekeeper for help?”

The lacefish abandoned their game to swim up to where Porter was pressing his fingertip against Mat’s knee. They sucked kisses to the glass, leaving bubbles in their wake.

“The Timekeeper?” Mat huffed ruefully. “He’s the one who got us all into this mess when that witch broke his heart. Why would I ask him to help me when he can’t even help himself?”

Porter grasped Mat’s knees and leaned over where he sat on his velvet pillows and pressed his nose to Mat’s.

“I’m helping him now,” Porter said with determination. “I’m helping you now.”

“Oh yeah?” Mat scoffed. “Well, I’m not yours to help.”

“We’re going to ask The Timekeeper for help, if I have to carry you back to him myself!” Porter said fiercely and tried to lift Mat off of his tortoise.

The tortoise brayed loudly, bucked, and smashed his face into the ground at Porter’s feet.

“Tortoise!” Mat screamed, terrified, and reached down to touch the tortoise’s broken neck.

“Why couldn’t you leave us alone? Why can’t you stop making things worse for delicate objects, you selfish swine?” Mat cried. “We were fine until you showed up!”

Mat shoved away from Porter hard, and slid backward, the velvet pillows toppling with him as he crashed to the ground. His legs and back shattered and lay in slivers around him, the shock of collision too much for his fragile frame.

The water trapped inside of his body gushed and spurted out at an alarming pressure, not unlike that of a firehose, and before Porter knew it, he was sliding down the side of the hill and into what was quickly becoming an ocean.

“Mat!” Porter called back to the man on the hill. “Mat!”

Porter tried to fight his way against the tide as it expanded and began to churn. The veiled lacefish swam past his hand frantically, tangling the pocket watch in Porter’s fingers. Seagulls cried overhead as Porter was tossed head over heels and back again.

Sputtering and choking on the briny sea around him, Porter got his head up long enough to catch a gulp of fresh air, and saw Hugo, in his deer form-- fishing Mat out of the water. Mat shot his hand up and grabbed onto Hugo’s large antlers, his body in pieces.

Mat’s hand broke like an Easter egg and the plates lifted away toward the sun. Underneath of it was creamy, pale skin with brown hair, wet from the ocean.

Mat’s laughter filled the air as Porter let himself be carried out to sea.


	4. The Darjeeling Sea

Porter kicked as hard as he could against the current, desperate to reach the surface. Red water, clear enough to see through, pressed in on all sides of him. He stretched out high above him, his fingertips finally brushing the thick meniscus of the ocean. He swept both arms down with force, and burst through the surface, sputtering and heaving large gulps of air.

A broken raft, part of a pinata, as colorful as confetti, floated next to him. Porter gripped it, and pulled the top half of his body out of the water. The liquid around him smelled like sweet, rotten fruit, with floral notes in the air. It was warm, almost like the tea his aunt used to brew in the sunshine on the patio.

It dawned on Porter that he was swimming in tea. The brackish water was just clear enough to see to the bottom, where tea leaves grew just like seaweed; pushing up through rough boulders of pure cane sugar. Porter pulled his legs closer to his body as to not get tangled in the white tags drifting up on thin strings. 

“Ahoy there, little tea otter!” a voice called behind him. Porter did the best he could to rotate his fragile paper float. A man in a row boat stood up awkwardly, bowing his knobby kneecaps to keep his center of gravity low.

Tea swashed up Porter’s nose as the row boat creaked closer, waves breaking against the barnacled hull. “I’m not a tea otter,” Porter choked out.

“My, so you aren’t,” the man said, as he reached his hand out to help Porter up. “What are you then? You seem like a boy, but boys don’t grow in the sea.” He used his lanky legs as leverage, pulling Porter into the boat. “At least, I thought they didn’t.”

Porter rolled into the boat, and unto his back. He had forgotten how exhausting swimming could be. The added viscosity of simple syrup did not help. 

“I am a boy,” Porter puffed, “but I didn’t grow in the sea. My name is Porter.”

“I am the Baron Darjeeling, Ryan DeRobertis of the house of Tea,” the man said and made a sort of creaking bow, his green striped pants riding high over his ankles. A peacock feather jostled cheerily from his cap.

Porter sat up, his clothing making squishing, squelching noises as he did, and looked around him. 

A golden sunset, fading with the day’s final minutes, painted the sky in burnt orange and amber hues, before stretching in a bold magenta line where the sea met with the sky. Round, fluffy clouds loomed along the horizon, dip-dyed baby pink and aquamarine.

He noticed a wooden cuckoo clock spinning wildly backwards at his feet. The pendulum, a lotus flower carving, was bound by a thick rust-colored rope that trailed behind the boat. Porter followed the rope with his eyes, as the sun finally dipped below the water.

The rope ended at a raft, simple in structure, but elegant in the way precious vases from the far east are. A girl lay with her hand trailing tea wakes as tiny Japanese fireflies strapped paper cubes to their feet and took flight, lighting her way in the bruised twilight.

“Who is she?” Porter asked, as the fireflies spread out around them, like tiny stars reflecting the night sky.

“She is the Finest Quality, of what, is for you to decide,” Ryan said. “I wanted to free her, because that is what I thought her finest quality was. But, no matter how much rope I let out, I can’t seem to let her go.”

“She appeared at a tea party I had to honor my family. She was so beautiful, and she loved my blend so very much, that I made enough to fill our valley with it; enough to spill into the ocean.”

Ryan sat down wearily across from Porter with his head in his hands. “She was washed away in a tea cup, and when I found her again, having a party with the tea otters, I rescued her.” 

“Imagine! All they wanted to do was wear fancy hats and eat cake from the sea! That’s no way for a lady to live.”

He lifted his hat and ran his fingers through his hair before nestling it back on his crown. “She was changed by then. It wasn’t the otter’s fault, but my own!”

“All the life had been drained from her form, her blonde hair hung in limp tendrils; dip-dyed pink by my wretched sea. Her tulle skirt was so raggedly and mouldy, yet she refused to be clothed by me,” Ryan said quietly, his voice fading as if the vibration were too much.

“I convinced the fireflies to stay by feeding them the sugar barnacles on her slippers.”

Porter closed his eyes.

Long into the night, after the stars all came out and swirled above his head, Porter found himself holding onto the cuckoo clock.

“It’s winding back to the time before you met her,” Porter said.

Ryan startled out of his trance-like state, mouth agape. “How do you know that?”

“Your wish,” Porter looked back at the girl on the raft. “Is to bring you both back to the time before you poured the first cup of your finest quality.”

Suddenly, the cuckoo clock stopped winding and shrunk down to the size of an apple. The boat shuddered violently, and stopped rocking altogether.

Porter peered over the side to find a sprawling beach of white sand. “Land,” he said dazedly.

“Not land,” Ryan said excitedly. “Sugar!” 

He jumped out of his barnacled boat, his wobbly kneecaps clicking as he ran toward the girl on the raft.


	5. The Observatory

Porter landed on the sugar plains under the starry curtain of nightfall. The sky was almost as if it was a piece of moth-eaten velvet, the lights dotting and invading the endless texture of space. The observatory, smooth and white, reflected the heavy light of the full moon. At Porter’s feet, the Darjeeling sea was painted indigo under silver rays, pink caps danced on rogue waves.

Broken tea cups and saucers crunched underfoot, mixing in with fine grade white sugar, smoothing the pieces into rounded triangles. Porter plucked a piece from where it was partially buried and examined it. His grandmother had a pair of earrings that were very similar. He dropped it and continued his trek toward the door of the observatory.

The door was covered in a complicated cog pattern; wheels interlacing with intricate locks and bolts. When Porter reached for the door handle, they all spun at once, and the door flung open to a single room. The room was spacious, as to accommodate the large silver telescope inside.

In the center was a sundial unlike any color of metal Porter had ever seen. If Porter spread his arms as wide as they could go, the dial would still be longer. Porter could perhaps touch the tip of the curved triangle in the middle if he stood on tip-toe. Not as bright as gold, and not as dull as bronze, it seemed almost as if the sundial had a flame licking at it from the inside.

Approaching it, Porter’s eyes widened. Intricate carvings in the metal revealed Hugo’s gentle face rife with distress. In the image next to him was a woman with a hammer. Her hair was emblazoned, and seemed to move despite the fact it was made of solid metal. The next image was of Hugo’s head in his hands, as she fell away from him, scattered pieces swirling behind her.

Porter walked slowly around the dial, taking in the glittering images of Hugo’s story. A man with the same round eyes as his father held a hand out to Hugo and presented him with a glittering piece. The next image was of a man melting a few collected pieces together. In each image, Hugo’s face seemed to melt away it’s distraught look, slowly becoming the face pressed behind Porter’s eyes.

In the last image, Hugo’s face was turned forward, almost as if it could look into Porter’s eyes. His gaze was just as piercing as that time in the ceramic forest, even though his eyes were a fiery gold in the carving.

A look of sheer hope; pure as a crisp autumn morning adorned his face. As Porter reached tentative fingertips out toward Hugo’s carved cheek, he noticed green and pink light leaking down the ceiling.

Above him, high in the octagonal vaulted ceiling was the image of space. Where in space, Porter was unsure because the swirling mass was moving much too fast to be normal. The arms of stars bursting and stretching before curling in, in, in, and exploding. Porter stared in awe as the cosmic dust swept itself up to begin the process over again.

 

“Sonny,” A man’s voice excitedly called from behind the large body of the telescope. 

“Sonny, did you see that?”

Porter waited for the man to step out from the other side, but heard no footsteps against the marble tile. Cautiously, Porter advanced to a large, black padded chair, where a man with legs much too long to be scrunched under him, peered through the telescope. 

“Sonny?” The man asked again and pushed his chair away. 

Porter was met with blue eyes and amused smile. “You’re not Sonny.”

“No, I’m not,” said Porter.

“Did you see where he went? The nebula we were watching just formed a new star!”

He looked at Porter’s blank face and muttered, “We were going to name it together.”

“Anyway, my name is Dillon. What brings you to my lovely observatory?” Dillon asked and waved his hands toward the ceiling. It exploded into a sea of stars, the formation out of order and too fast to be natural.

Porter looked over to the large sundial in the room and saw shadows passing over it. Hugo’s golden face twisted in pain along the etches.

“I came here to reclaim a clock,” Porter said.

“Well you came to the wrong place then. My assistant and I, Sonny, research stars here. We’ve been unlocking the mysteries of space.”

“How do the stars move so fast?” Porter asked, and watched Hugo’s golden frame bend over in agony on the sundial.

“I have Sonny move the sundial’s needle back and forth so that we can see the stars burst and bloom throughout the endlessness of space.”

Dillon caught his breath and looked from the ceiling down to Porter.

“It’s truly breathtaking,” he said and squinted at Porter. “Who are you again? Where is Sonny?”

Porter furrowed his eyebrows in confusion and looked at the dial. Shadows swept over the carvings glinting in the starlight. Hugo is young looking and smiling up.

Sonny walked into the room with two mugs in his hand and looked at Porter.

“Samuel?”

Porter flinched at the name but answered. “That was my father. He passed away when I was a baby.”

“Oh,” Sonny said. “I must have lost track of time. Please stay for a bit.”

Porter didn’t want to stay. The sundial was hurting Hugo and the stars were bursting like fireworks over his head. He wasn’t strong enough to pick up the golden clock. At least not like this. 

“How did you find this sundial?” he asked. 

“It washed ashore one day. Everyone across the land lost their sense of time that day, except us,” Sonny said.

“We’ve been sensing it ever since!” Dillon laughed and went back to his telescope, mug in hand.

Sonny stood quietly next to Porter as Dillon laughed delightedly at the stars.

“He used to look at me like that,” Sonny said. “Now he only looks at the sky. If I left, would he even notice?” 

Sonny turned away from Porter and walked back through the door.

The sundial spun uncontrollably, Hugo’s face aged and twisted in the etchings.

Dillon looked away from his telescope. “Where’s Sonny? The nebula we were watching just formed a new star. We were supposed to name it together.”

Porter looked from Dillon to the sundial and understood. 

He rounded on the glittering sundial, and turned it with his hands. It didn’t move easily with him, but at least Hugo wasn’t doubled over in pain anymore.

Sonny walked through the door with two mugs in his hands.

“Samuel?” 

This time Porter didn’t flinch. “That was my father.”

“Oh, I must have lost track of time. Please stay a bit.”

Porter stood next to Sonny as he handed Dillon his mug. Dillon went back to his seat and looked through the lens.

“He used to look at me like that,” Sonny said. “Now he only looks at the sky.”

“If you give me the sundial, he would have to look away,” Porter said. “Stars aren’t made to move that fast, and this is not the first time we’ve meet today.”

Time froze. The stars stopped swirling, and Dillon stopped laughing.

Sonny quietly sipped from his mug. 

“No it isn’t, I suppose.”

“This is not the first time you’ve lived through this day with him.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“Why are you doing this to yourself?” Porter asked.

Sonny removed his thick glasses from his nose. “What happens after today? What happens if he leaves me someday? I can’t take the thought of living without him.” 

“Today was the perfect day, a nebula we had been watching finally became a star. We drank hot chocolate from our mugs and after the sun went down, he kissed me for the first time.”

“I have been rewinding that day ever since with the help of the sundial, but every day kept getting shorter and shorter until it became just few minutes.” Sonny scrubbed his hand over his eyes.

“Love is more complicated that the vastness of space,” Porter said. “But you can’t just keep looking at it. You need to explore it.”

“Please, give me the sundial. Let me heal the timekeeper, and let him return time to this place.”

“I’m scared,” Sonny whispered.

“Me too, “ Porter admitted. “But love is something that needs to grow, or it will die.”

Sonny shakily nodded his head and approached the sundial in the middle of the floor.

He turned some gears that were set in the gilded base. The sundial played a tune, like the music box in his mother’s room and folded in on itself. It floated down and rested in Porter’s hand, no bigger than a plum.

“Sonny!” Dillon called. “Come look at the Nebula, it’s becoming a star!”

Sonny smiled softly at Porter and walked over to the telescope.

“Where did you go?” Dillon asked.

“I made you some hot chocolate,” Sonny said and watched the Nebula come together to form a star.

“Oh,” Dillon said and wrapped his arms around Sonny’s waist. “I missed you.”

Sonny looked away from the telescope and smiled at Dillon.

Porter quietly opened the observatory doors. 

He was back in the porcelain forest.


	6. The Heart of Time

Porter ran through the porcelain woods calling Hugo’s name. The leaves crunched and crackled under his desperate boots.

Suddenly, Hugo was there through porcelain birch trees with his arms open to Porter. 

Porter collided with Hugo, who was warm and solid against him. 

After a moment, Hugo curled his finger under Porter’s chin and tilted it up.

“What ticks, and tocks, but is not a clock,” Hugo breathed against Porter’s mouth. Cinnamon and crisp autumn fires filled Porter’s nose. His mouth twitched against his control, in a vain effort to get closer. He opened his eyes and looked into the endless pools of Hugo’s. His eyelashes were thick, his eyebrows gently creased in desperation.

“A heart,” Porter answered.

Hugo’s brown eyes spilled over, running down his face, his mouth split open in a toothy smile. He nodded like he could never stop, and laughed as light poured from in between the buttons of his shirt. Hugo cupped Porter’s face in his hands, and tangled his fingers in the hair at Porter’s nape. His nose brushed against Porter’s in the softest kiss Porter ever had. 

It was like dawn creeping through his window, or the quiet glow of a Christmas tree after everyone had gone to bed. It was like being born, and being held, and promised that the future was infinite.

It was the soft, dry leaves left behind after summer became too tired to wear them anymore where Porter woke up. His mother called from the back door for him, and even though he was only on the edge of his yard, she seemed very far away.

“Porter, your brother is here! Come in the house and get cleaned up before you see him.”

Porter curled up tighter in his pile of leaves, fingers reaching out, desperately searching for any trace of Hugo. His fingers landed in two large linear strokes perhaps an inch deep. Porter sat straight up and looked down. Deer hoof prints circled around his nest more times than he could count.

Decaying leaves pressed in the moist earth, bent at different angles, told the story of an existence spent waiting. Of the promise that Hugo would return to him.

Porter rolled over and pushed himself to his feet. His mother and brother shadowed against the white lace adorning the kitchen window. He caught a breath of cinnamon before opening the door to their cheerful conversation.

-Fin-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
